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Friday, 25 May 2012

Driveways, Power Poles and Telstra pits

Things to know for a knock down rebuild,

Power Pole - your drive way will need to be a meter away from
that.

Telstra Pit – if your driveway incorporates a Telstra pit,
you will need to have a concrete pit installed, about $800 for the pit, they
are generally plastic or older ones are sometimes made from asbestos sheeting,
also the pit needs to be completely in your drive way, and don’t forget that to
put the pit in they will need to disconnect and reconnect all the phone lines
using the pit approximately $800.

On a side note Penrith council need written permission from Telstra
to incorporate the pit in a driveway.

My story went something like this,

Searched the internet to find a number to ring Telstra on,
found this number 02 92040989, staff member said that I did not need to get
written authority, naively thought this was great so I waited for my concreter
to come back from holiday and start the job, he formed up the first time, and
tried to sneak me about 300mm closer to the power pole to make the driveway
work better,

1st council inspection, move driveway away from
power pole, (had to try) also the driveway would not be approved without
written permission from Telstra,

Concreter moves the driveway across books in another
inspection for the following morning, now the driveway is to narrow at the top,
only my wife’s car will fit with about 20mm on either side, I decided to take
the morning off to talk to the council inspector about our options,

Spoke to the Council inspector, he took one look at the
driveway and said that it wasn’t workable as it was and gave me the option of
taking a line past the power pole to line up with the column so that we could
drive both cars in the drive now. He also explained that he wasn’t able to budge
on the Telstra permission and I should ring them again.

Driveway with angle towards front column

original plan around Telstra pit

Rang the original number 02 92040989 again this time I explained
that I had a council inspector that would not allow me to organise the driveway
without the written permission, they gave me a different number to call –
1800653935 – I was given a job number and told that the Telstra rep responsible
was going to give me a call within 5 business days,

My concreter had also logged a job previously so I got a
call about a day later.

The conversation didn’t go as planned; Your pits broken and you
will need a concrete pit $800, (Yes I know the pit is broken, it has been
broken for 18 months, we log a job and get a job number, the Telstra contractor
comes out to fix the pit closes the job without fixing the pit, when the lid
breaks we can get a new lid but that’s about it, we got feed up of ringing), the pit needs to be in your driveway, not
possible, its half on my side half on my neighbour’s side (not like others in
the street which are placed on one side of the boundary) then we have to move
it, So now I need to pay for their broken pit to be fixed and relocated to the
correct place and its upwards of $1600, how far away do I need to be away from
the pit, 200mm, great close job.

Concreter moved the driveway from around the Telstra pit,
and I finally get the driveway finished, not how I had envisioned but at least
it was in.